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Does  Emilia  Love   the  Prince? 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


DOES  EMILIA  LOVE  THE  PRINCE? 


In  1841,  seventy  years  after  Emilia  Galotti  appeared,  Riemer 
published  his  Mitteilungen  ilber  Goethe.  This  work  contains  a  random 
remark  of  Goethe's  on  Lessing's  tragedy,  which  is  as  follows: 

The  fundamental  mistake  of  this  piece  is  that  it  is  nowhere  expressed 
that  Emilia  loves  the  Prince,  but  that  it  is  merely  hinted  at.  If  that  were 
the  case  (that  is,  if  Lessing  had  clearly  indicated  that  Emilia  loved  the 
Prince),  we  should  then  Icnow  why  the  father  kills  her.  Her  love  is  indeed 
suggested,  first  in  the  way  in  which  she  listens  to  the  Prince  and  then  by 
the  way  in  which  she  afterwards  rushes  into  the  room;  for  if  she  did  not 
love  him,  she  would  have  repulsed  him;  finally  it  is  also  expressed,  but 
clumsily,  by  her  fear  of  the  Chancellor's  house.  For  either  she  is  a  goose  to 
be  afraid,  or  a  loose  woman.  But  if  she  loves  him,  she  must  prefer  to  ask 
for  death  itself,  in  order  to  escape  that  house. ^ 

Goethe  was  the  first  to  suggest  that  Emilia  loves  the  Prince, 
although  the  drama  had  been  a  bone  of  contention  for  the  critics 
ever  since  its  appearance.  But  no  sooner  did  Goethe  point  the  way 
than  a  host  of  critics  tooK  up  the  hint  and  wrote  elaborate  articles 
and  commentaries  to  prove  Emilia's  love  for  the  Prince.  Does  it 
not  seem  strange,  however,  that  this  universalh^  known  tragedy  of 
the  great  master  of  dramatic  art  should  have  had  to  wait  nearly 
three-quarters  of  a  century  for  its  right  interpretation! 

And  yet,  Lessing  was  not  one  of  those  authors  who  believe  in 
hiding  anything  from  the  reader.  He  says  in  the  Forty-eighth  Paper 
of  his  " Hamburgische  Dramaturgic": 

I  by  no  means  agree  with  most  of  the  writers  on  dramatic  art  that  the 
development  of  a  play  should  be  hidden  from  the  spectator.  I  rather  think 
that  it  would  not  be  an  overrating  of  my  jiowers  if  I  set  myself  to  write  a 
play  whose  development  reveals  itself  in  the  very  first  scenes  and  whose 
most  sustained  interest  arises  from  this  ver>'  circumstance.  For  the  spectator 
everything  must  be  clear. 

liessing  wrote  this  while  he  was  worldng  on  Emilia  Galotti,  and 
therefore  it  seems  highly  probable  that,  had  he  intended  to  portray 

»  Riemer's  Mitteilungen  ilber  Goethe,  II,  663.     Translatioa  by  Professor  Max  Wiukler 
in  his  Introduction  to  Emilia  Galotti,  Heath  &  Co.,  p.  x.v. 
IMoDERN  Philology,  November,  1921]      199 

?  b'NlVERSITY  OP  CA!  IFORN'IA 

1  LIBRARY. 


200       :  *i  .**;  j.'j  /'\  y\  i\3i  li/^lv^jfo^^^it'  •  •  •;**•  ;•; 

Emilia  as  being;  in  love  witli  the  Priiici',  lie  would  have  done  it  in 
such  a  way  that  there  would  have  been  no  room  for  misunderstanding, 
and  the  drama  woukl  not  have  had  to  wait  for  seventy  years  for  its 
true  meaning  to  be  discovered.  Whatever  faults  Lessing  may  have 
had,  he  was  never  obscure  or  ambiguous.  Everything  he  wrote  was 
always  clear  and  to  the  point.  Over  and  over  again  he  repeats:  "For 
the  spectator  everything  must  be  clear."  Emilia  Galotti  especially 
is  his  maturest  dramatic  production,  the  work  of  his  strongest  critical 
and  creative  faculties,  and  it  is  consequently  one  of  the  most  care- 
fully constructed  plays  in  the  whole  range  of  modern  literature. 
Lessing  worked  upon  it,  off  and  on,  for  fifteen  years  and  considered 
and  reconsidered  every  minutest  aetail.  "Never,"  one  critic  writes, 
"was  such  a  piece  of  dramatic  algebra  put  on  the  boards  as  is  Emilia 
Galotti.  Every  line,  almost  every  word,  betrays  calculation  on  the 
part  of  the  author."'  Lessing  wrote  it  with  the  direct  intention  of 
giving  a  model  drama  to  the  German  people  and  of  exemphfying 
the  high  standards  which  he  had  established  in  his  critical  writings, 
especially  in  his  Hamburgische  Dramaturgie.  Accordingly,  when 
Goethe  complains  that  the  fundamental  mistake  of  the  piece  is  that 
it  is  nowhere  expressed  that  Emilia  loves  the  Prince,  it  must  be  said 
that  Lessing  could  hardly  be  blamed  for  not  expressing  what  was 
not  felt. 

In  a  letter  to  his  brother,  Lessing  himself  indirectly  characterized 
Emiha.     "The  maidenly  heroines  and  philosophers,"  he  said,  "are 

not  at  all  to  my  taste I  know  of  no  higher  virtues  in  an 

unmarried  girl  than  piety  and  obedience."-  It  is  these  virtues  of 
piety  and  ol)C(lioncc  that  are  the  most  essential  traits  of  her  character. 
They  are  fully  manifest  in  her  first  appearance  upon  the  stage.  She 
shows  herself  as  possessing  a  childhke  pious  heart,  being  intensely 
religious,  and  loving  her  parents  with  the  deepest  affection. 

EiniUa  is  the  daughter  of  higher  middle-class  parents.  '  ''By  nature 
she  takes  after  her  father  rather  than  her  mother,  and  it  is  he  who 
had  the  greatest  influence  upon  the  development  of  her  moral  char- 
acter. It  was  he  who  inculcated  into  her  those  severe  lessons  of 
virtue,  that  distrust  of  things  worldly  and  that  proud  disdain  for 

•  C.  von  Klenze,  Modern  Language  Xotea,  IX  (1894),  427. 
>  Letiing'i  Work),  Hempcl  ed.,  xxi,  482-83. 


k 


Does  Emilia  Love  the  Prince?  201 

life  itself  when  honor  is  at  stake,  which  determine  her  action  in  the 
'  most  tragic  moments  of  her  life."^  Of  her  almost  divine  beauty  we 
get  ample  evidence  in  the  scene  between  the  Prince  and  the  painter, 
Conti.K^Up  to  her  early  womanhood  she  lives  in  the  simplicity  and 
retirement  of  comitry  hfe.  To  further  her  education  she  goes  with 
her  mother  to  the  capital  town.  Her  father,  however,  has  an 
instinctive  dislike  for  the  city  life  and  the  court,  where  serviMty, 
flattery,  and  licentiousness  prevail. 

In  the  capital  Emilia  meets  Count  Appiani,  a  man  of  sterling 
character,  and  they  become  engaged.  One  evening  at  a  gathering  at 
the  house  of  Chancellor  Grimaldi  she  also  meets  the  reigning  Prince, 
a  thoroughly  unscrupulous  and  depraved  tyrant,  a  splendid  example 
of  those  scourges  with  which  many  of  the  smaller  states  of  Germany 
were  afflicted  in  the  eighteenth  century.  He  falls  in  love  with  her, 
and  from  the  opening  scenes  we  learn  that  he  soon  forgets  his  former 
mistress,  and  that  he  is  thinking  onlj-  of  how  to  obtain  Emilia.  And 
so  on  her  wedding  day,  while  praying  at  church,  she  hears  someone 
confessing  love  to  her.-  Turning  round  she  finds  that  it  is  the  Prince 
himself.  "Mute,  trembling,  and  abashed,  she  stood  before  me,"  the 
Prince  tells  Marinelli,  ''hke  a  criminal  who  hears  the  judge's  fatal 
sentence.  Her  terror  was  infectious.  I  trembled  also  and  concluded 
by  imploring  her  forgiveness." 2  Frightened  and  indignant  she  flees 
from  church  as  if  pursued  by  furies.  She  rushes  into  her  mother's 
arms  exclaiming:  " Heaven  be  praised !  I  am  now  in  safety."  Her 
mother,  too,  is  frightened  looking  at  her.  "What  has  happened  to 
you,  my  daughter  ?  And  you  look  so  wildly  round,  and  tremble  in 
every  limb."  With  difficulty  Emilia  tells  her  mother  of  her  expe- 
rience at  church.     And  then. 

As  I  turned,  as  I  beheld  him — 

Claudia:  Whom,  my  child  ? 

Emilia:    Guess,  mother,  guess!    I  thought  I  should  sink  into  the  earth.    It 

was  he  himself. 
Claudia:  Who,  himself  ? 
Emilia:    The  Prince.' 

»  Max  Winkler.  Introduction  to  Emilia  Galotti.  Heath  &  Co.,  p.  xx. 
2  Emilia  Galotti,  III,  iii. 
'  Ibid.,  II,  vi. 


202  William  Diamond 

And  it  is  this  fear  and  confusion  of  Emilia  that  is  interpreted 
into  love  for  the  Prince!  It  is  especially  this  "he  himself"  that 
the  critics  take  as  proof  that  she  has  the  Prince  constantly  in  mind 
because  she  loves  him.  But  why  not  take  a  simple  thing  simply? 
Is  it  not  more  natural  that  her  fear  and  confusion  are  due  to  her 
extreme  youth  and  inexperience,  to  the  suddenness  of  it  all,  to  the 
religious  and  moral  shock  that  she,  the  affianced  of  another,  should 
on  her  wedding  day  be  obliged  to  listen  to  a  sinful  confession  of 
licentious  love  from  the  lips  of  no  less  a  person  than  the  Prince  him- 
self, the  despotic  ruler  of  the  land,  the  hated  and  despised  enemy  of 
both  her  father  and  her  lover?  Why  not  take  the  Prince's  own 
words  of  her  attitude  toward  his  love  professions?  "With  all  my 
flattery,  with  all  my  entreaties  I  could  not  extract  one  word  from 
her.  Mute,  trembling,  and  abashed,  she  stood  before  me  like  a 
criminal  who  hears  the  judge's  fatal  sentence."  By  "he  himself" 
she  does  not  mean  the  Prince  as  her  lover,  but  the  Prince  she  met  at 
the  gay  and  frivolous  house  of  the  Chancellor,  the  depraved,  auto- 
cratic tyrant  who  does  what  he  pleases.  Such  a  man  could  not 
inspire  anything  but  contempt  in  a  woman  like  Emilia.  She  must 
have  realized  the  Prince's  intention  to  make  her  but  another  of 
his  mistresses.^ 

Emilia  is  determined  to  tell  Appiani  everything  that  happened  in 
the  church.  "The  Count  must  know  everything.  To  him  I  must 
tell  all."  But  her  mother  ad\'ises  her  not  to,  naj%  pleads  with  her. 
And  Emilia  is  not  "almost  glad  to  follow  her  mother's  advice,"  as 
Professor  Max  Winkler  and  others  would  have  us  believe,  but  only 
very  reluctantly  she  obeys  her  mother  because  it  is  her  mother's  wish. 
"You  know,  dear  mother,  how  willingly  I  ever  submit  to  your 
superior  judgment And  yet  I  would  rather  not  conceal  any- 
thing from  him."  "Weakness!  Fond  weakness!"  her  mother  ex- 
claims.    "No,   on   no   account,  my  daughter!     Tell   him   nothing. 

I  Cf.  Marinelli's  remarks  regarding  the  approaching  marriage  of  EmlUa  and  Count 
Appiani.  "A  girl  without  fortune  or  rank  has  managed  to  catch  him  in  her  snares. 
....  He  will  retire  with  his  spouse  to  his  native  valleys  of  Piedmont  and  indxilge  him- 
self in  hunting  chamois  or  training  marmots  upon  the  Alps.  What  can  he  do  better? 
Here  liis  prospects  are  blighted  by  the  connection  he  has  formed.  The  first  circles  are 
closed  against  him."  I,  vi.  Countess  Orsina  tells  Emilia's  father:  "I  am  Orsina,  the 
deluded,  forsaken  Orsina — perhaps  forsaken  only  for  your  daughter.  But  how  is  she 
to  blame?  Soon  she  also  will  be  forsaken;  then  another,  another,  and  another."  IV, 
viii.  At  the  very  time  the  Prince  is  infatuated  with  Emilia,  arrangements  are  being 
made  for  his  approaching  marriage  with  the  Princess  of  Massa. 


Does  Emilia  Love  the  Prince?  203 

Let  him  observe  nothing."     And  finally  Emilia  consents.     "Well, 
then,  I  submit.     I  have  no  will,  dear  mother,  opposed  to  yours. "^ 
Thus  it  is  against  the  voice  of  her  own  heart  that  she  agrees  not  to'7^ 
tell  Appiani  of  her  experience  at  the  church. 

Her  mother  tells  her  furthermore  that  she  has  taken  the  whole 
matter  altogether  too  seriously,  that  the  Prince's  so-called  love 
protestations  are  nothing  but  mere  gallantries.  "The  Prince  is  a 
gallant,"  she  tells  her,  "and  you  are  too  little  used  to  the  unmeaning 
language  of  gallantry.  And  thus  in  your  mind  a  civihty  becomes  an 
emotion — a  compliment,  a  declaration — an  idea,  a  wish — a  wish, 
a  design.  A  mere  nothing,  in  this  language,  sounds  like  everything,  -f 
while  everything  sounds  like  nothing."  To  which  Emilia  joyfully  ' 
exclaims:  "Oh,  dear  mother,  I  must  have  been  completely  ridiculous 
with  my  terror!  Now  my  good  Appiani  shall  know  nothing  of  it. 
He  might,  perhaps,  think  me  more  vain  than  virtuous.  "- 

Now,  if  Emilia  had  the  slightest  love  for  the  Prince,  she  would 
not  have  been  made  so  happy  by  her  mother's  assurances  that  Y" 
the  Prince  was  not  serious,  that  his  utterances  to  her  were  mere 
gallantries  signifying  nothing.  On  the  contrary,  according  to  all 
laws  of  human  nature,  such  assurances  would  have  disappointed  her 
painfully.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  Lessing  could  be  guilty  of  over- 
looking such  an  essential  trait  of  hvunan  nature.  This  alone  should 
be  complete  and  convincing  proof  that  Emilia  does  not  love  the-^ 
Prince,  and  that  any  such  supposition  is  entirely  contrary  to  the 
author's  conception  of  the  play  and  the  character  of  Emilia. 

After  the  attack  by  the  bandits  Emilia  is  taken  to  the  Prince's 
summer  place.  As  soon  as  she  learns  where  she  is,  the  whole  bitter 
truth  dawns  upon  her.  "That  the  Count  is  dead!  And  why  is  he 
dead!  Why!"^  Her  father  tells  her  that  he  is  not  permitted  to  take 
her  with  him,  and  that  she  will  be  taken  by  the  Prince  to  the  house 
of  the  Chancellor  Grimaldi.  But  to  that  house  she  will  not  go.  She 
is  no  longer  the  weak  child  listening  to  her  mother's  advice  against 
her  own  inclinations.  She  will  no  longer  compromise.  The  day's 
experience  has  changed  the  inexperienced,  timid  young  girl  into  a 
strong  and  determined  woman.  She  will  rather  die  than  remain  with 
the  Prince  or  go  to  Chancellor  Grimaldi's  house.     Thus  her  mother 

i  Emilia  Galotti,  II.  vi.  ^  Ibid.  ^  Ibid.,  Y,  vii. 


204 


William  Diamond 


aptly  says  of  her :  "  She  is  the  most  timid,  yet  the  most  resolute  of  her 
sex;  incapable  of  mastering  her  first  impressions,  but  upon  the  least 
reflection  she  is  calm  and  prepared  for  everything."^ 

This  determination  to  die  rather  than  to  go  to  the  Chancellor's 
house  convinces  her  father  that  she  is  absolutely  innocent.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  his  confidence  was  somewhat  shaken  by  Coxmtess 
Orsina.  He  is  now  again  convinced  that  her  innocence  is  safe  and 
above  all  force.     "But  not  above  all  seduction,"  she  replies. 

Force!  Force!  What  is  force?  Who  may  not  defy  force?  What  you 
call  force  is  nothing.  Seduction  is  the  only  real  force.  I  have  blood,  my 
father,  as  youthful  and  as  warm  as  any  other  girl.  My  senses  too  are  senses. 
I  will  answer  for  nothing.  I  will  guarantee  nothing.  I  know  the  house  of 
Grimaldi.  It  is  a  house  of  revelry.  One  hour  spent  in  that  house  under 
the  protection  of  my  mother,  and  there  arose  in  my  soul  a  tumult  which 
aU  the  rigid  discipline  of  religion  could  not  easily  queU  in  whole  weeks. 
Religion!  and  what  religion?  To  avoid  no  worse  snares  thousands  have 
leapt  into  the  waves  and  now  are  saints.  Give  me  the  dagger,  then,  my 
father,  give  it  to  me.^ 

It  is  Emilia's  fear  of  the  Chancellor's  house  that  is  also  cited 
by  the  critics  from  Goethe  down  to  the  present  as  supreme  proof  that 
she  loves  the  Prince.  First  the  critics  take  for  granted  her  love 
for  the  Prince  to  explain  this  passage;  then  they  use  the  passage  to 
prove  her  love  for  the  Prince.  Such  arguing  in  a  circle  has  no 
value.^ 

Emilia  is  afraid  of  the  Chancellor's  house  not  because  she  loves 
the  Prince,  but  because  "it  is  the  house  of  revelry."  It  was  in  that 
house  that  she  first  came  into  contact  with  the  gay  and  frivolous 
world  which  conflicted  so  strongly  with  her  moral  and  religious 
principles,  and  it  cost  her  a  severe  effort  to  overcome  its  seductive 
influence.  After  what  has  happened  this  day,  to  go  back  to  that  house 
seems  to  her  nothing  less  than  the  loss  of  her  salvation.  It  is  this 
fear  that  animates  her  soul,  and  not  any  love  for  the  Prince.  "To 
avoid  no  worse  snares  thousands  have  leapt  into  the  waves,  and  now 


>  Emilia  Galotti,  IV,  viii.  =  Ibid.,  Y,  vii. 

'  Cf.  Kuno  Fischer,  Leasing  als  Reformator  der  deutschen  Literatur  (Stuttgart,  1881), 
p.  210.     Fischer,  DUntzer,  and  Stahr  do  not  believe  that  Emilia  loves  the  Prince. 


I' 


Does  Emilia  Love  the  Prince?  205 

are  saints."  In  her  voluntary  death,  alone,  she  sees  the  possibihty 
of  escaping  from  eternal  damnation,  and  hence  it  becomes  for  her 
a  religious  duty. 

Another  argument  used  by  the  critics  to  prove  Emilia's  love  for 
the  Prince  is  Lessing's  conception  of  tragic  characters.  In  his  Ham- 
hurgische  Dramaturgie,  Lessing  accords  with  Aristotle's  dramatic 
theory  that  the  tragedy  must  rouse  in  us  pity  and  fear,  and  for  that 
reason  the  hero  or  heroine  must  be  neither  a  faultless  character  nor 
a  thorough  villain.  In  the  Eighty-second  Paper  of  the  Dramaturgie, 
he  writes:  "The  wholly  unmerited  misfortune  of  a  virtuous  man, 
according  to  Aristotle,  is  not  fit  material  for  a  tragedy,  because  it 
is  terrible."  And  again,  "A  man  may  be  very  good  and  yet  have 
more  than  one  weak  point,  commit  more  than  one  mistake  through 
which  he  throws  himself  into  immeasurable  misfortune  which  excites 
our  pity  and  sorrow,  but  which  is  not  in  the  least  horrible,  because 
it  is  the  natural  result  of  his  mistake."  And  emphatically  he  repeats 
the  statement,  "We  must  not  let  any  perfect  man  suffer  in  a  tragedy 
without  any  fault  on  his  part,  for  this  is  too  terrible."  This  required 
weakness  or  fault  the  critics  point  out  to  be  in  Emilia's  case  her 
love  for  the  Prince. 

Of  course,  Emilia  has  her  weakness  or  fault  as  required  by 
Lessing's  theory  of  tragic  characters.  But  it  is  not  her  love  for  the 
Prince.  It  is  the  fact  that  she  allowed  herself,  against  her  own  feel- 
ings, to  be  influenced  by  her  mother  not  to  tell  Appiani  of  the  meeting 
with  the  Prince  in  the  church.  If  she  had  told  everything  to  Appiani, 
as  she  wished  to  do,  Marinelli's  plan  would  have  failed  in  the  begin- 
ning. The  scene  between  her  and  Appiani  follows  right  after  the 
church  scene  and  immediately  precedes  the  one  in  which  the  intriguing 
Marinelli  delivers  to  Appiani  the  Prince's  proposal  to  go  at  once  as 
an  ambassador  to  the  court  of  Massa  and  make  final  arrangements 
for  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  with  the  Princess  of  Massa.  This 
arrangement  of  scenes  was  not  the  result  of  mere  chance;  it  is  more 
likely  that  it  was  carefully  calculated  to  serve  a  definite  purpose 
in  the  play.  It  was  Emilia's  only  opportunity  of  telling  Appiani  of 
her  meeting  the  Prince  in  the  church.  Count  Appiani  would  have 
answered  the  Prince's  proposal  differently,  had  he  laiown  of  the 


206  William  Diamond 

latter's  designs  on  Emilia.  By  listening  to  her  mother  rather  than 
to  the  dictates  of  her  own  heart,  EmiHa  missed  the  opportunity  of 
telKng  Appiani  what  he  should  have  known.  As  a  result,  the  unsus- 
pecting Count  is  assassinated,  and  Emilia  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
Prince  and  Marinelli.  It  is  this  failure  of  EmiUa  to  tell  Appiani  of 
her  experience  at  the  church  that  fulfils  Lessing's  theory  of  tragic 
guilt.  Emilia's  love  for  the  Prince  would  be  more  than  a  weakness 
or  fault.  It  would  make  her  an  accomplice  of  the  Prince,  and  she 
would  deserve  the  suspicion  of  Countess  Orsina  that  she  was  not 
violently  abducted  and  that  the  attack  was  prearranged  with  Emilia's 
knowledge. 

Accepting  Goethe's  dictum  that  Emilia  loves  the  Prince,  the 
critics  must,  to  be  consistent,  proceed  to  misinterpret  the  other 
characters  of  the  play.  Instead  of  admitting  that  the  Prince  is  an 
unscrupulous  and  thoroughly  depraved  tyrant,  surrounded  by  flatter- 
ing parasites,  knowing  no  desire  but  to  give  himself  to  sensual  passion 
and  enjoyment,  they  tell  us  that  he  is  an  accomphshed  and  handsome 
young  man  and  of  a  very  attractive  personality,  just  the  kind  that 
EmiUa  would  fall  in  love  with.  However,  this  is  not  the  Prince  as 
Lessing  portrayed  him. 

Count  Appiani,  on  the  other  hand,  is  characterized  by  the  critics 
as  a  brooding  and  sentimental  individual,  just  the  kind  that  Emilia 
would  not  fall  in  love  with.  Accordingly,  Professor  Max  Winkler 
tells  us :  "  The  relation  between  Appiani  and  Emilia  is  not  based  upon 
deep  passion.  They  are  merely  good  friends."  And  again:  "What 
a  contrast  there  is  between  the  brilliant  personality  of  the  Prince  and 
that  of  Appiani !  From  the  latter  she  probably  never  heard  any  such 
words  of  passion  as  the  Prince  utters  in  the  church  and  in  Dosalo,  for 
even  on  his  marriage  day  Appiani  approaches  his  bride  with  a  strange 
melancholy  and  a  foreboding  of  evil."^  But  does  not  Professor  Wink- 
ler ignore  the  real  character  of  Appiani  ?  Even  the  Prince,  Appiani's 
mortal  foe,  must  say  of  him  that  he  is  "a  very  worthy  young  man,  a 
handsome  man,  a  rich  man,  and  an  honorable  man."^  Emilia's 
father,  himself  a  man  of  immaculate  honor,  considers  the  approaching 

'  Professor  Max  Winkler,  Introduction  to  Emilia  Galotti.  Heath  &  Co.,  p.  xxxiii. 
SI,  vi. 


Does  Emilia  Love  the  Prince?  207 

marriage  of  his  daughter  with  Appiani  as  the  height  of  happiness, 
"  I  can  hardly  await  the  time,"  he  says,  "when  I  shall  call  this  worthy 
young  man  my  son.  Everything  about  him  delights  me."*  Emilia 
herself  calls  him  "my  good  Appiani"  and^n  the  only  scene  between 
her  and  the  Count  she  shows  how  deeply  she  does  love  him.  - — 

It  is  true  that  Appiani  "  approaches  his  bride  on  the  marriage  day 
with  a  strange  melancholy  and  foreboding  of  evil."  But  that  is  the 
only  time.  Professor  Winkler's  even  implies  the  opposite,  which  is 
not  true.  Appiani  himself  wonders  why  he  feels  so  downcast  on  this 
of  all  the  days  of  his  life.  He  cannot  explain  the  reason.  Then,  too, 
Emilia's  dreams  about  the  pearls,  whifch  she  says  signify  tears, 
intensify  his  melancholy  mood  and  strange  premonition  of  evil.  •  But 
Appiani's  forebodings  and  Emilia's  dreams  were  designed  by  the 
author  ta  prepare  us  for  the  tragedy  that  soon  overtakes  them  both, 

i  and  not  to  characterize  Appiani  as  a  melancholy  and  gloomy  person. 
With  just  as  much  justice  one  might  speak  of  Shakespeare's  Desde- 
mona  as  a  "melancholy  person  with  a,  strange  foreboding  of  evil" 
because  she  feels  like  singing  the  sad  Willow  Song  on  the  fateful 
evening  before  she  is  strangled.-  The  critics  misinterpret  Appiani's 
character.  They  paint  him  in  the  darkest  colors  and  the  Prince  in 
the  brightest — and  all  to  make  it  plausible  that  Emilia  loves  the 
Prince. 

But  to  return  to  Emilia.  Against  her  own  will  she  allowed  her- 
self to  be  persuaded  not  to  tell  Appiani  of  her  meeting  the  Prince  in 
the  church.  That  is  her  weakness  or  fault.^  When  she  finds  herself 
in  the  Prince's  summer  place,  she  realizes  her  fault.     Hence  the 

{tragic  words:    "That  the  Count  is  dead!     And  why  is  he  dead! 

I  Why!" 

J II.  iv. 

*  Dreams  and  premonitions  are  commonly  used  by  dramatists  to  foreshadow  events 
and  to  create  the  proper  atmosphere  in  the  play.  Other  examples  from  Shakespeare 
are  Antonio's  unusual  sadness  in  the  opening  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Clarence'  and 
Stanley's  dreams  in  Richard  III,  Juliet's  words  in  Romeo  and  Juliet: 

"I  have  no  joy  of  this  contract  to-nJKht; 
It  is  too  rasli.  too  unadvis'd,  too  sudden. 
Too  like  the  lightning,  which  doth  cease  to  be 
Ere  one  can  say  it  lightens." — II,  ii,  117-20, 
and  many  others. 

'  A  somewhat  similar  fault  or  weakness  constitutes  the  tragic  guilt  of  Shakespeare's 
Desdemona.     I  mean  when  she  fails  to  tell  Othello  that  she  lost  the  handkerchief. 


208  William  Diamond 

Accordingly,  the  whole  question  centers  around  this  one  point: 
Was  Emilia's  silence  due  to  her  weakness  in  obeying  her  mother's 
wish  rather  than  the  dictates  of  her  own  heart,  or  was  it  due  to  a 
secret,  sinful  passion  for  the  Prince  ?  It  has  been  pointed  out  above 
how  reluctantly  she  obeyed  her  mother's  advice,  and  that  her  silence, 
therefore,  was  not  due  to  any  love  for  the  Prince.  Furthermore, 
Emiha  would  not  have  been  made  happy  by  her  mother's  assurances 
that  the  Prince  was  not  serious,  and  that  his  so-called  love  professions 
were  but  mere  gallantries,  if  she  had  loved  the  Prince. 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  out  of  the  forty-three  scenes  in  the 
play  Emilia  appears  in  only  four  and  not  in  a  single  monologue. 
There  is  nothing  hidden  in  her  nature  that  needs  to  be  revealed  in  a 
monologue,  and  least  of  all  a  secret,  sinful  passion  for  the  Prince. 
Goethe's  random  remark  should  not  have  been  taken,  in  this  case,  as 
unimpeachable  wisdom  and  expanded  into  a  commentary  on  the 
tragedy.  Goethe's  great  reputation  by  no  means  rests  upon  his 
critical  remarks.  Not  a  single  one  of  his  literary  criticisms  stands 
out  pre-eminently.  Most  of  them  have  merely  an  extrinsic  value  due 
to  the  fact  that  Goethe  wrote  them.  Friedrich  Schlegel,  in  his 
review  of  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meisters  Lehrjahre,  says  of  Goethe  as  a 
literary  critic:  ''He  revels  too  much  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  own 
perfectly  beautiful  soul  to  be  able  to  explain  with  the  faithful  impar- 
tiality of  an  unassuming  investigator  the  works  of  another  poet." 
But  merely  because  Goethe,  in  his  old  age,  made  that  remark  con- 
cerning Emilia's  character,  it  was  taken  up  by  the  critics  as  a  divine 
oracle  and  accepted  as  final.  Nearly  all  the  subsequent  interpre- 
tations of  the  play  are  amplifications  of  one  sort  or  another  of 
Goethe's  random  and  misleading  remark. 

As  already  mentioned,  Lessing  himself  said  in  regard  to  Emilia: 
"I  know  of  no  higher  virtues  in  a  young  unmarried  girl  than  piety 
and  obedience."  It  is  these  virtues  that  predominate  in  her  and 
are  the  cause  of  both  her  wealoiess  and  her  strength.  If  she  had 
been  a  little  less  obedient,  she  would  not  have  listened  to  her  mother's 
advice.  Again,  the  child  who  at  first  has  no  will  but  her  mother's 
is  at  last  able  to  make  the  stronger  will  of  her  father  submit  to  hers. 
She  will  not  go  to  the  Chancellor's  house.  One  hour  spent  there 
i 


Does  Emilia  Love  the  Prince?  209 

made  her  feel  its  seductive  influence,  and  it  required  the  severest 
fehgious  discipHne  to  overcome  that  influence.  If  she  had  been  a 
little  less  pious,  she  would  not  have  been  so  scrupulous.  But  then 
she  would  not  have  been  Emilia  as  Lessing  portrayed  her  in  the  play. 

William  Diamond 

University  of  Chicago 


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